The wait was worth it. The eighth edition of the Portuguese Film WeekAt this point, a classic of the months of December at the Malba, it was desired: its leaders decided to delay it for a few months due to the possibility that the museum’s movie theater would reopen to the public. Finally, after some comings and goings, the new installment of the annual meeting with Portuguese cinema will be (almost) exclusively virtual. That “almost” has a specific reason for being: The opening performance will be in person and outdoors, on Wednesday 10th at 6.30pm, on the terrace of the Recoleta Cultural Center, where you can enjoy the exhibition of Technoboss, latest feature film by director João Nicolau. To attend it is necessary to register in advance on the website www.centroculturalrecoleta.org Nicolau’s film is just the tip of an integrated spear, as is customary, for about two dozen titles –Between long, medium and short films– that go through the various sections of the program. The rest of the films will be shown in the virtual room of the Malba at different times, until the closing of this authentic mini festival, next Sunday the 14th.
For Maria João Machado, co-founder of Vaivem, the film association in charge of running the Week since its inception, and its main programmer, “The stubbornness was to do the meeting in person, but it could not be. We hope that this is the only virtual edition, although we finally reconciled a bit with the idea, given the concrete possibility that, this time, the films can be seen throughout the country and not only in Buenos Aires. This year’s programming was designed during the pandemic, in the moments of greatest confinement, and seeing it now I realize that it is full of trips, journeys, and journeys. There is something that unifies all the movies, a search for everything we lacked in 2020. It is a very collaborative edition in which we invited other people, such as Miguel Valverde, director of the IndieLisboa International Festival, and Mariangela Restrepo, who collaborated in curating the sections “There are more tides than sailors” and “Travesías”, respectively. Friends from the Argentine film magazine also collaborated The useful life in two talks that can be seen during the Week ”.
The Panorama section, which highlights the most relevant of recent Portuguese cinema, offers titles such as the collective film Macabre dances, skeletons and other fantasies, co-directed by the filmmakers Rita Azevedo Gomes and Pierre Léon and the philosopher Jean-Louis Schefer –A stimulating exploration of the history of painting, particularly of a medieval genre little known to the general public–, and the mind-boggling Diamantino, in which Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt propose a playful tale of espionage in the world of professional football. The selection also includes two documentary feature films focused on the life and / or work of the respective filmmakers and, in both cases, the results are far from the typical informative semblance. In the case of Sacavém, Júlio Alves approaches the figure of one of the most relevant Portuguese filmmakers of the last three decades, Pedro Costa, to offer an atypical portrait of his creative method. Costa never appears on camera – his back and immediately recognizable hair can barely be seen – opting instead to use his voice as a companion and guide to the images: film clips, scrapbook records (or non-scripts, as the director of In Vanda’s room), shooting photographs.
The Galileo Thermometer, of Teresa Villaverde, is a portrait of the daily life of the Italian Tonino De Bernardi, a true cult filmmaker who has managed to forge a filmography that borders on the experimental without abandoning narrative interests. Villaverde – whose Portuguese Film Week will also show two short films, in addition to participating in an online chat – spent a whole summer with De Bernardi and his wife in a Piedmont summer house, and the result is an intimate and revealing record of the artistic and human interests of the creator of Elletra (1987) and the recent Resurrection. The Postcolonialism Focus, without which “it is no longer possible to conceive the Week”, in the words of Machado, includes the essay film War, of José Oliveira and Marta Ramos, in which the memories of an ex-soldier form the basis for a series of representations about memory, the war horrors of the past and his injuries in the present. The end of the world, of Basil da Cunha, Y We are a country, of Camilo de Sousa and Isabel Noronha, they complete a selection that aims to shed light on “the scars that colonialist experiences left on national identity, and that still mark people and social organization,” according to the catalog text.
The short film program by the Terratreme production company, one of the most stimulating and creative in contemporary Portuguese cinema, was baptized with the title “Crossings” and includes ten productions that recreate personal or collective, literal or metaphorical journeys, and includes titles by Susana Nobre, Ico Costa and João Salaviza. Finally, the selection “There are more tides than sailors”, which takes its name from a popular Portuguese saying, presents recent films such as Wakasa, by José Manuel Fernandes, Mirage my kids, by Diogo Baldaia, y Balaou, by Gonçalo Tocha, young filmmakers who once again confirm –in case it was necessary– the vitality of films produced in Portugal.
Complete schedule, days and times of the exhibitions, seminars and talks in www.vaivem.com.ar
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